The Bird in the Viper's Nest
by inzayn41D
Summary: During a perilous first encounter between the Greeks of Argo II and the Romans, Leo Valdez sets fire to the Roman encampment, unleashing a dizzying chain of events that sets 7 heroes racing across the country, a madman hellbent on fanning the flames of public contempt and Reyna to pick up all the pieces. The trap had been set and she was a bird amongst a sea of vipers.
1. Chapter 1

**For all those who read my fanfics over the years and enjoyed them I just want to say thank you. For sticking by me and seeing the good in them despite the glaring faults, messy plotlines and terrible grammar. Anyway, I've read Rick's recent work and it got me in a Jeyna mood, so in my own way this is my ode to my Jeyna days. Looking back I don't think they could ever been together so I had no idea how I held out so much hope but it's nice to play with the what if aspect if this ship. Some of this fic is inspired by the Ember in the Ashes, a series I would definitely recommend everyone to read. I was also inspired by _I_ _Surrender_** **by Celine Dion, especially the last bit where I had this mental picture of Reyna and Jason travelling to Split with their sisters and bumping into each other individually in the old town.**

 **Act I:** Loss of Power

 _Judging by the angle the sun lay in the sky I assumed that it was around 5 pm, giving me around an hour or so to get back to New Rome before the senate meeting began. I had little doubt that Octavian had noticed my absence by now and called a secret meeting, seizing the city's unrest to blame the whole debacle on my incompetence. If there was one thing I hated the most it was admitting that the little git was right; I had lead the horse right into our home and watched them burn it. Even worse, I had let them get away with it. Suffice to say, my trek towards the Berkeley hills was not an easy one; my whole body was racked with a visceral rage; an instinct drilled into me through my years of training at the Wolf House and at camp: the desire to annihilate my enemies, to bleed them dry and make sure nothing was left of them. I had already lost so much in my short 16 years of life but one loss I wouldn't tolerate was Rome. Over the years, I've grown use to people coming abruptly, always forcing me to make room for them and always leaving with the same violence they came. Rome was never like that for me; the very concept of it had the likeness of an old companion guiding me through the lonely sojourn that was life. Rome had offered me the comfort and permanence that no parent, friend or lover ever could. Now I risked losing all that._

 _After intercepting a few traps along the way, I entered one of the many labyrinthine tunnels that perforated the hillside. Upon entering, a bolt of cool air washed over me which I was grateful for, the bliss of it almost distracting me from the dark figure that lurked a few paces from me. Instinctively, my hand reached for the dagger at my side._

 _"Salutations, Praetor Ramirez-Arellano," the dark figure said, finally moving into the light streaming from the mouth of the tunnel, "I was expecting you, did you enjoy all the traps I've set?"_

 _I tilted my head forward out of respect of speaking to an elder as was custom of my people, "General Drusus Cornelius Scipio," I intoned, "Yes I did enjoy them, especially when I had to pick pieces of shrapnel out of my armour. Must I always risk my death in order to meet with you?"_

 _The old general considered. In truth we were cousins, separated by thousands of years and lands. When the western half of the Roman Empire fell, Rome's eternal flame dispersed, travelling in arcs across continents, its torch picked up by many empires and kingdoms throughout the ages. My family traced Rome's light across the Spanish Empire and then to Puerto Rico, while his decided to stay in continental Europe before migrating to North America; being one of the founding families that established the colony that would become New Rome. I remember when I had first met him and he discovered our shared heritage; he had laughed which was something he rarely did and said; "We are Cornellii's, ours is hardy stock, while we don't have any imperial blood in our line ever since Rome's founding we have been generals, statesmen and advisors loyal to the expansion of the Empire. Wherever Rome's legacy burns the brightest you will find one of our kinsmen there, no doubt kindling the fire that makes the Empire churn. That is your inheritance."_

 _His dark brown eyes sparkled. "I could, but what use would all your training be? Life would be rather dull if we mortals didn't dance with death every so often." Once the word death was spoken the atmosphere around us shifted. I waited for the blow._

 _"Octavian still lives," General Cornelius Scipio said with distaste,"Why haven't you killed him yet?"_

 _"I'm afraid assassinations aren't so easy these days. If anybody caught so much of a whisper of it, I'd be apprehended and then put on trial for conspiracy for murder."_

 _He scowled at my callous indifference, "Use that head of yours, child. Make it look like it happened due to natural causes; do you see how skinny and sickly he is? You'd just be speeding along the process."_

 _I pondered his advice, unraveling the many possible outcomes in my head. Octavian was no longer thorn at my side nor the bitter rival he was during the years I've climbed up the ranks. I was now vested in a neck deep struggle for power against him and the outcome was clear: one of us had to die for the other to win. And I was not willing to play into his machinations again. Still, killing him would come with a cost. Rome was at its edge; some parts of the city lay in ruins and our wares were spread thin. And beyond that was the fact that I did not want to take on the role of a killer again. For as long as I've known him, Octavian was angry, vicious and broken. Now I could add mad on that list too, but there was something else lurking within him; a darkness that mirrored my own. Where I fought mine and submitted my will to Rome, Octavian was ruled by his. The same could be said about many of my compatriots; the hierarchical organization of camp did that much. Cruelty and bloodthirsty ambition proved to be useful tools to claw yourself to the top. Briefly, I wondered what would have become of me if Jason hadn't offered me his friendship. He was my closest friend, the first person who convinced me to make camp my home. Today's events did nothing to change that._

 _While I was in thought General Cornelius had seen the conflict written clearly on my face. "Young one," he started, putting a firm hand on my shoulder. "I see a fierceness in you that wholly belongs to our family. My daughter had the same fire though it was snuffed out because she was too good, like you..." I sensed a tinge of sadness in his voice. "Your enemies will see that, for such weakness is often exploited. You are a good person and that will be to your detriment."_

 _I would be lying if I said his words didn't unsettle me for what they implied. My climb to power had been perilous; I had risked a lot, lost a lot, just to be where I was. Now I had to fight to secure it. After one last exchange, I left the cavernous tunnels and made my way down the grassy hilltops and into the winding alleys of New Rome, just passing the Pomeranian line and into the Senate House, into a vipers nest._

...

While General Cornelius' advice weighed heavy on my mind, I might as well have been one of the many ghosts in the Senate room as Octavian had wrested my power from me _again._ Suddenly, I had the chilling thought that maybe the General overestimated my being too good. I had killed my own father because I _thought_ he had murdered Hylla. I made a name for myself in New Rome in spite of the fact that the very action I took against him would've gotten me executed if anyone caught word of it. I could and would do it again if it ensured the safety of Rome and my people.

"I trust I do not have to repeat the horrors of today, but if I must..." Octavian turned to feign a smile at me, "I suggest _Praetor_ Reyna do the honours, since that monstrosity entered the city on her permission." From their seats the senators looked upon me askance, too stunned (angered) by the days events to speak. Even the ghosts essences flared more fiercely than usual. They awaited my explanation.

So I gave it to them. "I did it on the condition that Jason was on that boat. Basic diplomacy requires that much, _Octavian."_ I retorted, trying to mask the anger in my voice.

" _Diplomacy_ ," Octavian enunciated the word as if I were a child who was playing a role far too big for her. "Should only be extended when the requirements to do so are met. The Greeks infiltrated our camp with a _trireme,_ why you didn't consider _that_ itself as a declaration of war is a sure sign of your incompetence." At that, I forced my hands to grip the sides of my toga. He was now attacking me in front of the Senate and in doing so hoping to meander his way into my mind; in hopes of getting an emotional reaction from me, to make me undignified.

He smiled once again, this time putting his smugness on full display which was when I recalled speaking to him earlier today, a few minutes after one of Jason's friends fired at New Rome. I remembered how calm he was amid the chaos that ensued, how unsettled it made me feel. _He had have to have known this, I thought._ I had been trying to restore order among the crowds when he encircled me along with his lackeys on his way to Capitoline hill. _"It's no use, Reyna," he had said, "You've set your own trap and now you must lay in it."_

 _"NO," I growled back. "This is what you wanted from the very beginning, you blamed me for everything that went wrong so far, and now that there's chaos you'll use it to assume power! You never cared for Rome, you only ever cared for yourself!"_

 _"And?" His expression teetered between perplexity and amusement. "Rome was always just a set of ideals; the truth is that Rome is ruled by the men who govern it, never the other way around. Julius Caesar knew that and so did my ancestor Augustus. Perhaps you wouldn't be such a fool if you had realized that too." He then burst out into laughter. "I thought we could work together once, you and me, as did Augustus with Livia, but you are no more than a desperate little girl trying to establish ideals that could be only found in books. The reality lies in the people, in having men being loyal to you, not what the dead say."_

 _For a moment I tore my eyes away from Octavian and looked at the scene that lay ahead of me; parts of the city burning, a trireme floating a few miles above my head; my people hurting and angry, in a few hours they'll be looking for someone to blame. I turned back to look at Octavian who had a triumphant gleam in his eyes._

 _"I wonder," he said with fake curiosity. "Who will take the blame for this incident and how will we ever get retribution? Should the criminal be sewn into a sac and thrown into Tiber, flogged to death or thrown into a gladiatorial game for our enjoyment?" He gauged my expression, his eyes speaking for him: your death, your choice. "It would've always been this way, Reyna. I would've taken it regardless of the costs."_

...

With so little allies—Centurion Dakota and his cohort as it seemed—the decision was unanimous; we would be going to war against the Greeks. As I held the spear meant to be symbolic of warfare and marched my legion up Capitoline hill, I wondered if I could've done more. But what more could've been done when the motto of my people was _aut vincere aut mori,_ conquer or die. We built an empire before on those very same words. History could never be changed, once provoked there was no going back, my peoples thirst for vengeance would not be quenched until we wrought destruction on the Greek camp and brought back the criminals heads on pikes. Where that made me stand I did not know. My instinct and training told me it was my right to go after them, but whatever heart left in me countered that Jason was on that boat and whatever the reality was; I would never hurt him.

When we reached the summit of the hill I let the cool night's air envelop me and in that moment my mind started to wander as it did often—not to the past or future, but to another world entirely. In this world my father was never driven mad because of love and my family was never torn apart. In this world Jason Grace wasn't abandoned at the wolf house nor was he a son of Rome; he was a Greek. We'd live separate lives, mine as a wayward, sheltered daughter in Puerto Rico while he lived on the eastern seaboard. Him being raised a Greek would even him out in a way Rome could never do; the likeness of him being a gentle breeze on a summers day instead the calm in midst storm I was so used to. We'd meet in Split, Croatia, a city that attracted both of us for its beauty and history and we'd fall in love—free from the mantle of expectation that both our legacies set upon us. I let the image of it settle before I wiped it clear from my mind. The fantasy does not bring me the comfort that it used to. Instead this truth lay painted before me: Jason was gone and the only thing left from him was the destruction his friend set upon the city. War was all that was left.


	2. Chapter 2

**_I knew this dream well._** I had variations of it every night, once I stood before New Rome as nothing but columns and cinders and other times I acted as Octavian's hound in dispensing his reign of terror. Though different, all of my dreams confirmed my greatest fears; the loss of another home and me being bound to Octavian by law, blood and body. Tonight's dream began as it always did, in the forum. Under usual circumstances the forum was bustling with men, women and children but in my dream a frightening silence clung onto the city like a wet cloth. I made my way through the New Rome's serpentine streets and tiers- made in case of invasion, searching for something or someone lost, for what reason I did not know. My search ended at the entrance of a hacienda, my old home, a jarring sight amid the stucco walls and Romanesque architecture of New Rome. Paralyzed by my own fear, I looked down at my body and found myself dressed in the clothes I wore when me and my sister fled Puerto Rico, a simple billowy white dress and worn sandals. I no longer embodied the image of a hardened Praetor I spent years trying to construct. I was my truest self again, _Reyna,_ a weak little girl who'd rather run away from her past then deal with it. I stood at the door of my ghosts.

 _"Open it"._ A voice beckoned. Trembling, I put my hand to the door's knob and gave it a sharp turn, revealing a darkness so malevolent that it looked _alive._ I decided that it could engulf me whole.

 _"Come to us"._ The eerie voice from before called. _All souls have their roots. This is your home, return to it._

"No." I said, my voice trembling from fright. "The things that happened here. The things _I_ did. This place was never a home... it was a prison."

 _"Yet you run from it so,"_ the voice taunted. _"What of Aiaia, was it not bathed in flames? Whose to say this place isn't next. Camp Jupiter is nothing if not a glorified prison. Rome will fall and you will be without a home again."_ A dream was all it was but my fear was palpable, rising higher then I knew possible by the second. I hugged myself tightly and in my periphery visions of the dead materialized before me. I knew them well for they were another constant in my life. They stood all around me, some wailing, others only laughing, the similarity between all of them being their rage and despair that tethered them to me. They wanted me to be with them, and I would, in due time.

 _"Murderer." One of the ghosts, the conquistador, spat out._

 _"Traitor. If you had any honour in you you would've let them kill you for your crimes. That's what a true Roman would've done."_

 _"It should be your head the Romans should be vying for, father-slayer."_

 _"She left her people forfeit all because a man she cared about was on that accursed boat." Another ghost snickered. "All while she dares to parade herself in armour like a Roman centurion. A true Roman does not feast with the enemy, nor does she give her heart out as easily."_

 _"There is not a single man in the legion unscathed by her advances I bet," a ghost in legionary armour barked._

 _"A true Roman would kill themselves after such failure."_

 _Together, the voices of the ghosts formed a cacophony of shrieks and taunts until a voice, distinct in its singularity drowned them all out. I recognized it as the voice that greeted me before, but strained of its disembodied quality so I could give it name and face. It was a voice I knew as intimately as my own. As frozen and desolate as deep winter and as sharp as a whiplash. It belonged to my father._

At the sound of his voice I lost whatever was left of my will and the darkness of my surroundings called and then lunged out as my father so often did on the days I misbehaved. In his wake I became of the same ilk of my demons; a hollowed out vessel deprived of all emotion except raw anguish and rage. The only voice I could give to them were my screams. Just then the darkness took hold of me and behind me the door of the hacienda locked shut. I then remembered one of my father's worst punishments, when he'd lock me in a windowless room for days in complete darkness so I wouldn't be able to tell if it was night or day. In those days sleep and wakefulness were just as blurred and equally terrifying.

I woke covered in a cold sweat and lay in my bed shivering for minutes after. Once my heartbeat lowered to its usual pace, I hurriedly dressed myself in my senatorial garbs and scrawled a letter to Centurion Lucan Valerius, senior officer of the second cohort and my closest ally, dispatching it by means of a raven. No less than twenty minutes later, the young man appeared in the common room clad in a dark cloak, armour and leathers. There was no shortage of underground tunnels and trap doors in New Rome and fittingly there was a secret tunnel that lead to the Praetor's apartments in the principia. In the coming days I planned to use all of them.

"Centurion Valerius report the cohorts alignments." I demanded, even though the senate meeting hours before made the matter quiet obvious. I most likely had the full backing of the fifth and most of the fourth cohort, which left the remaining cohorts in Octavian's hands. I knew there was no way I could win over the first cohort since that was the cohort Octavian belonged to, but the second and the third... Doubtless the second was a proud cohort, and although I used to be their co-centurion alongside Valerius, my ties to them meant far less than the social clause that held them privy to the first cohort. The third cohort held a far less reputable station than them so I expected them to vouch for whoever they thought had a likelier chance of winning and so far the odds favoured Octavian.

"As of now you have the support of most of the fifth and fourth cohorts. I've caught word that centurions from the fourth and fifth held a meeting outside the city perimeters. As expected, the third is sharply divided. Just today a fight broke out within their ranks, about half of them were injured and among them two were so badly beaten that they were dismissed from service." He then looked up at me from the scroll in his hand, his dark eyes searching my face. "You should've been there to see it, it was so tense you'd think that everyone was seconds away from tearing out each other's throats. It took all the discipline of the senior officers to reign everyone in. I've never seen anything like it before."

I twisted the ring on my hand as I always did when I was anxious. "I would've put an end to it and quickly." I whispered.

"But this is what its come to, Reyna." Lucan said, tucking the scroll into his cloak. "I've apprehended two of the soldiers who started it. What will you have us do to them?"

"I can't lose anymore legionnaires, Lucan!" I snapped at him. "The legion could only handle so much. We already lost too many soldiers in the last battle and we're still recovering from storming Mount Othrys. I need all my soldiers and the city's veterans if we mean to survive what is to come, and I do!"

"As do I." He said, struggling to conceal his frustration towards me. "But you have to act. Octavian is gathering his host and do not think your hold over the fourth and fifth cohort is solidified. If he cannot make them honour bound to him by fraternity and tradition like the first and second, then he'll likely start to buy out their loyalty through money and blackmail. You've given him the space to usurp power from you and in no time he'll likely start a smear campaign against you and whatever is left of our supporters, and after that who knows what he'll do!"

 _And I given him a lot to work with, I thought dejectedly._

"In any case," he breathed an aggravated sigh, "You must put an end to this right now. The Romans are thirsting after bloodshed and I'm afraid I can no longer tell if it's the Greeks or each others, so I will ask you again; what will you have me do with the prisoners?"

I steeled my nerves in anticipation of the most hateful parts of my job, the role of the punisher. "Issue an order to the legionnaires that for today's morning muster we will gather in the field of mars. I'll have the two _soldiers_ dosed in water before they are to be whipped by their senior officers and make sure to mention that from this day on the third cohorts rations will be decreased to a quarter of their original amount and to any brave legionnaire that dares to fight another one in name of faction will be executed and put to display in the forum." I looked at him hard. "You have my word, now go!"

Centurion Valerius saluted before retreating into the door that lead back to the principia, his as empty as my own. I decided it was the quality I hated the most about him and when he was gone I found myself burying my head between my hands, praying for the council of my sister and Jason, both of them as unavailable to me as they were to each other. They would never come to me as I needed them to. _Please, I found myself begging, let this be the right thing._ This war I had to contend with on my own.


End file.
